Welcome to Texas justice: You might beat the rap, but you won't beat the ride.

Tuesday, October 06, 2015

Surcharge Amnesty pushed off till late next year

Grits learned yesterday that Texas DPS, which during session said they planned to do another Amnesty program for the Driver Responsibility surcharge by the end of the year, has now pushed that back until "the end of the new year (2016)."

Since reform legislation on this subject died an ignominious death in 2015, there's nothing in the law making them do this. But they promised House Homeland Security and Public Safety Committee Chairman Larry Phillips they'd do another Amnesty, so presumably the agency wants to keep that pledge before the next legislative session in 2017. There's no reason, though, they shouldn't do it immediately. Why wait?

Meanwhile, over the weekend Eric Dexheimer at the Austin Statesman had a story (Oct. 3) detailing the travails of a family whose vehicle was hit by an uninsured driver. The article included this discussion of the Driver Responsibility surcharge and its role boosting rates of uninsured and unlicensed motorists.

policies promoted by Texas lawmakers also have produced more illegal drivers than otherwise would exist.

The
Texas Driver Responsibility Program was passed in 2003 with the promise
of raising money for the then-cash-strapped government and making roads
safer. It levies civil surcharges against people who are convicted of
driving without a license or insurance, or driving while intoxicated, or
who are habitual traffic offenders. The fees are on top of any criminal
fines and court costs defendants pay.

The fees, which with
nonpayment penalties that can quickly escalate into thousands of
dollars, create a cycle that unnecessarily makes and keeps drivers
illegal, said Emily Gerrick of Texas Fair Defense Project, which has
advocated repealing the program. Many can’t pay — about 60 percent of
the surcharges go uncollected — so they simply continue to drive
illegally because they must. Others living paycheck to paycheck may stop
buying insurance to cover their fines — meaning they, too, eventually
lose their licenses.

According to the Department of Public Safety,
more than 1.3 million Texas drivers currently have their licenses
suspended through the surcharge program. The top reason, said Gerrick:
fees for driving without insurance and driving without a license.

The program “is actually putting more cars on the road without licenses — making public safety more dangerous,” she said.

It has been such a failure that one of the lawmakers who created it recently begged the Legislature to trash it.

“This
program was never intended to cause as much harm as it has to Texas
families,” Mike Krusee, who represented Williamson County in the 1990s
and early 2000s, wrote in May. “For many individuals, the program has
dramatically and negatively impacted their ability to work and has
resulted in more unlicensed and uninsured drivers on the road.”

Yet hospitals, which are recipients of the surcharge fees, have successfully lobbied politicians to keep the program alive.

“We
recognize the funding mechanism is not ideal,” said John Hawkins of the
Texas Hospital Association. But, he added, until lawmakers figure out
how to replace the money, the industry will continue to oppose the
surcharge program’s repeal.

7 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Krussee's reversal may have been influenced when he himself was charged with DWI. Of course with him being a republican politician his DWI was dismissed by a fellow republican. https://www.dui.com/blog/judge-dismisses-texas-dwi-against-former-lawmaker-mike-krusee/

Is it just me or does the Texas Lege have a knack for authoring and then passing laws that turn many otherwise law abiding citizens into criminals? Seems like they do it and if it gets too controversial, rescind it and act like it wasn't their fault.

When the vocal majority realize that surcharges are causing THEIR uninsured/under-insured coverage to skyrocket just to give politicians in Austin more money to spend,.... action will be taken.

Texas politicians are not good at fixing bad laws that "sound" like they should be good. Who can be opposed to fining people that drink and drive or illegally drive on OUR streets?

But once the Rotary/Kiwanas/Moose/Elks/etc. start asking, "Did you support that bill that has caused my insurance premiums to spike and has made the uninsured driver problem worse? Politicians start acting. The problem has to threaten their re-election in order to matter.

@Anon 8/30/2016 01:21:00 PM... good freaking luck. I don't think ANYONE'S ELIGIBLE. I'm living where I am only because I worked out an arrangement of room and board in exchange for housekeeping. I get no pay. I can't drive and the buses here suck, so I've had a hard time finding work. I have no steady income. Yet they want to know HIS income... he refuses to provide it because it's none of Gila Corp.'s damn business. The dispute is between Gila and myself. Those are MY surcharges, not his. Yet if I was homeless, I'd probably still be denied because they want documentation of how you support yourself. They want to know what kind of welfare you get. If you don't qualify for welfare (because it's TEXAS)... and you have NO income... you probably won't qualify for this, either.

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